Confronting the past

"A front page of the Telegraph with a plane [of asylum seekers] taking off to Rwanda, that's my dream, it's my obsession," said Britain's home secretaryIn Britain, they are responsible for national security, immigration and policing. Suella Braverman in October.

"I am utterly serious about ending the scourge of illegal migration," she remarked on a different occasion, complaining of a migrant "invasion" that would destabilise Britain.

Many are desensitised to such language. Former UK prime minister David Cameron called migrants and refugees from the Mediterranean a "swarm". Theresa MayThe prime minister of the UK between 2016 and 2019. Her attempts to secure a Brexit deal ultimately failed, resulting in her resignation. became famous for policies designed to create a "hostile environment" for illegal migrants.

But one woman was not willing to let it slide. Joan Salter, an elderly Holocaust survivor and educator, stood up in a constituencyAn area whose voters elect a person to represent them. meeting with Braverman last Friday to address her statements.

"When I hear you using words against refugees like 'swarms' and an 'invasion', I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify the murder of my family and millions of others," she said.

Braverman, uncowedNot frightened or worried into going back on your words. , replied: "I won't apologise for the language that I have used to demonstrate the scale of the problem."

Many were unsatisfied with the answer, including Salter herself. In an article penned shortly after the exchange, she remarked that "when I hear the kind of rhetoric being used by our politicians against desperate refugees [...] I am concerned by how quickly we have forgotten the lessons of the past."

Her comments could not have come at a more pertinentRelevant. time. Today marks Holocaust Memorial Day, as people around the world remember the atrocities of a genocideThe annihilation of a people, either through killing of its members, or through the suppression of its culture. in which more than six million Jews were systematically murdered by Adolf Hitler's Third ReichThe Nazi regime referred to itself as the "Third Empire", following the German Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) and the Second Reich (1871-1918)..

But recent surveys suggest that awareness of the Holocaust is shockingly low. Polls show that one in 20 Brits do not believe that the Holocaust happened, a quarter of young Dutch people think that the Holocaust was either a myth or "exaggerated", and 23% of young American adults are not aware of how many Jewish people died.

There is also a growing tendency towards whitewashingDeliberately concealing incriminating facts. complicity in the genocide. The Polish government recently made it illegal to blame Poland for crimes committed during the Holocaust.¹

Some have criticised Salter's comparison, but it is an analogy that has been made before.

In 2015, Germany decided to open its borders to refugees after civil war broke out in Syria, famously taking in more than one million migrants from 2015-2016. It was depicted as a symbolic reckoning, as the country confronted its dark past and vowed to apply lessons from the Holocaust to the present day.²

Meanwhile, after apologising for turning down Jewish refugees from Europe back in 1939, Canada resolved to take in the most refugees of any country in the world in 2018.

But even in countries with more open borders, refugees remain a contentious issue and are often scapegoated for social issues.

"Propaganda and words of division can create such hatred that ordinary people can turn on their neighbours," warns Salter, adding "the ordinary people who have swallowed your words will eventually regret it".

Yes: Britain became home to 10,000 predominantly Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi-controlled territory via KindertransportGerman for children's transport. Individuals and companies sponsored around 10,000 children to bring them to Britain. nine months before the war started. Nowadays, it is one of many countries denying entry to people.

No: Although both situations are tragic, there is no fruitful comparison between migrants today and Holocaust victims. The world today is very different to even 50 years ago.

Or... There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. But predominantly, Holocaust Memorial Day should be a space to commemorate the victims who died, not to talk about modern political issues.